Silvered Tears
by Rainbow Daydreamer
Summary: Written for a story competition. The opening sentence was to be My greatest enemy I never saw, never touched, never felt. Here's my take on it, and a unique Silver Kougra. Not the happiest story.


**Silvered Tears**

_The following was found written in a notebook._

My greatest enemy I never saw, never touched, never felt. Though she has tortured me beyond reason and stolen my sanity, I believe that is true. For so long, I didn't even recognise her existence, her power. Perhaps for a few days, when I was a simple yellow Kougra newly born, she knew me. But I was too young to know her, to see her, to feel her pass me by. Later, I would be forever out of her reach.

My name is Catine. I am a Kougra, a Kougra of purest silver, and a mathematician. This is my attic room, where I write my theorems and equations in neat lines, safe from the bustle of the streets outside. But I need no brick walls or metal armour to protect me from my greatest enemy, though she can pass through any barrier and overcome any defence. To her, I am untouchable. I see only her effects, her devastation of everything I have ever held dear.

Joanne. That is the name of the owner I loved so dearly, the one who was there as I tinted the waters of the Rainbow Pool with a cloud of silver, waiting with her proud smile. I can see her face clearly before the eyes of my mind; the human girl with the dark hair, the laughing eyes, the open arms. She gave treats to me, whether I was good or bad; she told me I was irresistible. She bought me a Petpet, a beautiful Kookith as yellow as the sunshine, to make sure I was never alone.

Whoever reads this, do not be deceived. I have no tear-jerking story to tell of how Joanne grew tired of me, or lost her money to a thief. Mine is not the tale of so many other Neopets; I have never been a pet imprisoned by the bars of an adoption centre's cage, waiting for the help of a kindly human hand. My greatest enemy needs no iron-barred windows to create a prison for those she cannot touch. Sometimes, the attic room of a beloved Neohome is enough.

No, Joanne did not abandon me. She cared for me day by day, polishing my delicate claws, grooming my Kookith with a glittering brush, buying for me the finest toys and things to eat. And one day, she asked me if I was willing to take in another Neopet; a sibling. Elise was her name. She was such a pretty Hissi, with scales of crimson red and eyes like glowing jewels. I remember her so clearly, the way she lay coiled in her little bed with her eyelids closed, dreaming of other days and other places. We would play together, or study my schoolbooks.

I was truly happy then, or so I believe. And still I had no knowledge of my enemy, let alone of the damage she would cause. I had no idea that, one day, I would curse her with every fragment of my shattered mind.

When did I first learn of her? Perhaps the day in September when Joanne found me packing notebooks, pencils, ink-pots, as I always did, preparing for the new year's Neoschool. I looked up to see the strangeness in her eyes, a flash of regret. Then she took my rucksack from me and replaced it on the shelf. I could no longer go there as I had once done so freely. Never again.

My enemy, my worst enemy, had made her first strike. It was a simple loss, hardly significant, little more than a simple signal that she was there, watching me. Still, it was her first strike. She had taken me away from the little Neoschool, from my classmates and my lessons. From then on I would study alone.

I had no idea, then, of what was to come. I thought my enemy simple, natural, perhaps even kind, offering me new experiences and delights as she took the old ones from me. I had much to learn, then. And the learning of it would cost me my sanity, my hope, my love. These things are hers now, lost to me.

I shall never forget her second attack on me, the cruelty of it, the shock I felt. Yet now, as I look back, I see how small her triumph was. It was nothing but a Petpet, a small creature whose existence is almost insignificant when set against the whole world. She stole from me the Kookith I treasured so much. I remember kicking my paws against Joanne, screaming over and over that it was not true, could not be true. Nobody could take my Kookith from me. And yet it was true; I knew it each time that I passed the empty petpet basket, the silent garden. It was true; the Kookith was gone.

Elise tried her best to comfort me as I cried for the lost Petpet. I should have cried for the loss of my innocence. Now I knew the ways of my enemy, deceitful, unstoppable, as sudden as a thunderstorm, yet as subtle as a summer breeze. There was no defence that would hold against her.

And the next time she attacked, she took my sister from me.

All at once, before I knew it, Elise was telling everyone that she was going to Mystery Island, going with a smooth-tongued, blue-eyed male Hissi that she'd met in the marketplace. I told her how pleased I was, I helped her to make plans. I saved my tears for when I was alone. Somehow, I already knew I was losing my little sister to an enemy of whom I knew nothing.

After that, it was just Joanne and myself once again. She would groom me, and feed me, and take me to concerts. I was beginning to be happy, for the first time since Elise's wedding. I moved into the attic room of my house, with my mathematics books and my pillows. I have always slept better beneath the stars.

Then, so slowly that I didn't notice at first, things changed. For some reason, my Joanne came to see me less frequently, and always in a hurry to return to her Realworld home. Eventually, her visits stopped altogether. I was alone in my house, left to manage for myself. I did not cry. I knew that Joanne was busy living a fulfilled, wonderful life in a place I would never see. But my heart ached with the same sadness I had felt before, and by instinct I knew the sign of my enemy. She had returned to torment me, as invisible as the wind and as terrible as a nightmare.

And yet, one night years later, I returned to my Neohome to find Joanne there, sheltering from the rain and trying to warm herself by the fire. I welcomed her with open paws, without a hint of anger. Once again we played together, we laughed, we loved one another. It seemed that my old enemy had surrendered her finest prize, had given Joanne back to me in an unexplained moment of generosity. Perhaps _she_ could be a kindly force after all. If nothing else… I thought that she had finally left me to be happy, to be free.

I was wrong, but it would be many a year before I was to know it.

Elise had children. We visited them on Mystery Island, smiling and cooing over their beautiful eyes and the shine of their scales. We helped her to choose their names. I never married; the thought had occurred to me, but the moment of realisation, of meeting that special Kougra in an unexpected place never seemed to happen. It didn't matter. I had Joanne and she had me, and she had promised me that she would never leave me alone again.

One day, as we played together in the garden, a familiar figure flew overhead squawking a warning. It was the government's alert-Pteri, his red feathers serving as an extra symbol of danger. "Alert! Alert!" he screeched. "All Neopians, beware of an incoming data storm in Neopia Central. Neopets, please return to your Neohome. Humans, please leave Neopia at once. If you have no place to stay, please report to the Community Hall. Thank you."

"I'd better go," Joanne sighed, standing up. "These data storms are getting more and more frequent."

"Stay," I begged. "Stay just a bit longer."

She shook her head and picked up her belongings. At that moment, the data storm hit.

Shop tills rang prices down into negative numbers. Items vanished from street-stalls, with the traders taking cover in the nearest building. Petpets began to howl for no reason.

And in my garden, for a moment, Joanne _changed._

Her beautiful dark hair, her pretty laughing eyes, her delicate sun-touched skin, were gone in a moment. The human being I was looking at had hair as silver as my own reflection, tired eyes that seemed to look at me from behind a mask. Her voice as she spoke was Joanne's, but with a hoarseness to it, a tremble. "Catine? Catine, what's wrong?"

The next instant she had teleported back into the Realworld, without giving me a chance to say a word. I stayed in the garden, staring into space in wordless horror.

Joanne came back, of course. The same laughing, loving Joanne that I knew. But I was scarred by the memory of what I had seen, that day.

Then came the day when she didn't return. I waited, remembering her promise never to leave me again. But days went by, and she did not come. After a week, I gave up watching by the door. And still the days passed.

As I ate my breakfast of wheat flakes and toast, the door-latch rattled. Abandoning my food, I bounded forward to greet Joanne, glad that she had finally come home. Yet the figure standing in the doorway, her hands clasped, was not Joanne, but a human woman in, perhaps, her thirties. Her hair was blonde, though her eyes held the same dark-tinted sparkle as those of my beloved owner. As I backed off to hide in the kitchen, she cupped her hands and called down the hall.

"Um… Katrina?"

Seeing she had no clue, I took pity on her and stepped out into the hall. "It's Catine. Did you want to see me?"

"Yes…" She stroked my silver pelt, seeming at a loss for words, and I saw a tear stain her pretty cheek. "Catine, my name is Tessa… J-Joanne's daughter. She told me…" I stood there with her arms around my shoulders, as she sobbed. "Catine, you belong to me now…"

I understood.

My worst enemy had stolen Joanne from me.

And so it was. And so it is. She continues to haunt me, irresistible and uncaring. Yet still she cannot touch me; I see only what she has caused.

People ask me, sometimes, why I study mathematics with such devotion. To this I have a simple answer. Worlds may collapse, leaders fall, stars explode in the heavens, but the pure facts of mathematics remain as they are. Like me, they are immune to _her_ touch, special and constant. Like me, they remain.

So it was. So it is. It has been a long while since I have set foot on Mystery Island. There a painted stone rests on the sand, lapped at by the waves, in memory of Elise. Yes, my sister is gone, another victim of my deadliest enemy. Save for Tessa, who comes to me when she remembers and takes care of me without understanding, I am the only one left of my precious, loving family. Is it any wonder that everything I have means nothing to me?

_Tonight I change all that._

Tonight I take an irrevocable step.

I will confront my enemy.

_I am a Silver Kougra. _Those are the words with which I began this page. Everyone has seen pets like me, but who understands what it actually means? No mere colour graces my fur, no pretty silver sheen on the softness of my pelt. Silver Kougra. Not a colour, but a description; a Kougra modelled from purest silver. A perfect sculpture, with all that that brings. Joanne believed it was a gift.

I have seen so much in my life, my eternal life. I have seen Kreludor rise, becoming the glittering civilisation of humans and pets that it is today; I have seen Neopia Central fall, degenerating into a shell of its former self. I have seen so, so many pets, flickering past me like the flakes in a snowstorm, each one individual and special, yet gone in a moment. That is the sign of my enemy; change, destruction, loss. Yet I wonder, tonight, if she is my enemy after all.

In my paws I hold a parcel wrapped in soft white paper. I open it as I write these words, revealing a simple object of magical power; a Yellow Paint Brush. When I finish writing this record, in the book I once used for my equations, I will take the brush and pass it across my cold, metallic fur. Then, my silver immortality gone, I will finally surrender to what I now realise have been kindly hands all along, hands to guide me to Joanne and my sister. Tonight, willingly, I shall fall at the hand of my greatest enemy.

The enemy that Neopets call _time._


End file.
